Dying for a Chevy Volt, but....

Awl --
After a recent thread on the Volt, I'm really tryna justify the purchase of
one, but bleeve, it's hard.
I figger my gas cost per year is $1600 or so, and payments for a Volt would
proly be $6,000 year.... PLUS electricity costs.
Now, about those electricity costs.....
If you calculate the $ per mile of gas, you get something like this:
At $4/gal, with 30 mi/gal, it costs 13c/mi in fuel.
Now, how much does it cost to charge a battery?
Don't for a minute believe what your ripoff utility tells you about c per
kWhr.... Do the math on your bill, divide the kWhr on the bill into what
you actually wrote on your check. Around NYC, that seems to be about
25c/kWhr -- which is outrageous.
So let's figger that Tesla's 85 kWhr battery takes, well, 85 kWhr to charge
it..... that's about $20 in electricity.
If the Tesla gets 200 miles on that charge, that's 10c/mile.
If it only gets 100 miles, that's 20c/mile..... !!!!
Split the diff, that's 15c/mile.... MORE than what I'm paying per mile in
gas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WTF??
You get similar numbers for the Leaf, and Volt.
Now, it gets worse:
There's the ever-present thermodynamic kick-in-the-ass.
It will NEVER take only 85 kWhrs to charge an 85 kWhr battery -- it will
take proly 20% more.
So even if the Tesla DOES get 200 mi per charge (and jb's article suggests
that it does not
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highway.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0
)
factor in the charging inefficiency, and you are just about EQUAL in $ per
mi cost of a 30 mpg vehicle.
Anything less than 200 mi per charge, and the Tesla loses, and poss. loses
badly.
So at NYC electric rates, an electric car, not counting ANY other factors,
is actually MORE expensive than gas, at $4/gal.
YET, you see these huge "equivalent" mpg numbers for electrics, typically
around 100 mpg, implying a $ per mile cost of less than 1/3 the cost of a 30
mpg vehicle..
But my calcs show that an electric will be *at least* as expensive as gas,
and likely considerably more than gas, as a fuel.... What gives??
Holy shit.... there goes my Volt....
Now factor in the high initial cost of electrics, inevitable battery
deterioration AND replacement cost, and wow, simply not viable. Unless I
made a mistake somewhere.
Now, some may bleat, Oh OH, MY electric rates are 5c/kWhr.... and I would
repeat, do the net division on your bill to see what it REALLY is. At a
TRUE 5c/kWhr, yeah, it makes sense, you could divide all the above electric
costs by FIVE.
But I don't think anyone is really paying 5c, and quite a few places, like
CA, pay MORE than NYS utility rates.
AND, if your small car gets 40 mpg, that's even tougher competition for
electrics.
Idears?? Opinions?

The P.L.L.C.F. are always trying to push junk science and technology.
Electric vehicles have their place but the Moonbats are determined to
push immature technology upon the citizenry especially when there is
no widely established infrastructure to support it. When you see The
President and congressmen traveling around in battery powered limousines
and The Capital and White House powered completely by solar
cells and windmills, the technology will be ready for the masses. Until
that happens I'll be very skeptical that the present national energy and
transportation infrastructure should be scrapped for something from
La La Land. ^_^
TDD

I won't call it junk science, but there is much need for improvement.
Solar is just starting to get a foothold in the sunny regions and is
still a very expensive alternative here in the northeast. The payback
is just not there for most of us. It has been on the market for 40
years already with minimal inroads.
Electric cars may have a place in the future, but right now they are
very impractical and expensive. If I lived in downtown New York
Boston, Chicago, etc. and only popped around town a couple of miles,
I'd probably consider a small car with electricity. If I can't make
it to work and back, it is useless for me. Not to mention very
expensive. It may become practical in the future, but I bet we are
looking at 15 to 30 years and a limited market.
CNG may be a better alternative for the small city cars.

I wouldn't call it junk science either. Things often get perfected after
we gain experience from using them. As far as electric vehicles being
"pushed on us" I have been to the latest car shows and also to many
dealers and most of the vehicles were fitted with gasoline engines and
you can buy gasoline engine cars without restriction.

The problem with CNG is the significant infrastructure update required.
Currently it is a great fit for say companies that have regional fleets
on the road because they can set up their own CNG refilling station at
their headquarters for example.

Well Ed, perhaps I should call it pie in the sky. The folks pushing the
nonsense lack any understanding of the real world and what it takes to
run it. The cloud hugging, tree kissing, bunny buggering Greenies want
zero emission peddle cars for everyone because it makes them believe
they're saving the world in Gaea's name. Moonbats think and make their
decisions based on emotion rather than logic and rationality. Their
knowledge and understanding of the technology they wish to push on all
of us is nonexistent. Whenever I have a discussion with one of the well
meaning buffoons, I ask them to explain how the tech works and how to
apply it. All I get is a blank stare and guttural vocalizations of the
sound "duhhhhh". I wish I was on our family farm on the side of a
mountain in the Northeast part of the state so I could build and
experiment with wind power and other forms of alternative energy but I
don't have the health and resources to do something like that which I
would really enjoy. When I mention to a Greenie that there is a very
good nonpolluting source of energy called nuclear power, they freak out
and howl about how dangerous it is and how it is bad for your health
then they light up another cigarette. O_o
TDD

They have a place. Around here (well, not actually in the town I live
in) many drive golf carts. The grocery stores all have cart spaces
(closer than the handicapped spaces). Even the high school has a golf
cart parking lot (cart driving age is 14). As a car replacement, it's
a stupid idea.

But a golf cart saves many hundreds of dollars a year by not requiring
registration and insurance, which can destroy the savings potential of
having a second limited-range electric car. They solve a problem that
is social rather than a technical.

I have a golf cart but I can't drive it on the road without tags and
insurance (plus having all the street legal equipment).
There may be places with cart paths to shopping but that is a rare
place. I break the law, just driving around the neighborhood and the
cops usually let us get away with it but actually getting up on the
county roads would get me arrested.

AIUI, in Alabama they're legal on any road posted under 35MPH. Don't
know about insurance or tags. Only half the drivers have insurance
anyway. :-(
In the city I was referring to above (Peachtree City, GA), there are
cart paths and bridges that bypass all of the major highways and they
are street legal on other roads. Again, I don't know about insurance
but there is a city registration for them.

Well there are things more important than cost!!
Importing so much oil from the mid east and other places where were
hated puts our entire economy at risk if say Iran decides to sink some
tankers in the straight of hormuz..... Imagine gasoline at 8 bucks a
gallon:(
If you look back at our last few recessions they went right along with
gasoline at over 4 bucks a gallon.
Were right at that pont again and worse congress is more interested in
politicking than being responsible abut sequestration....
USA has at least a couple hundred year supply of coal to generate
electric.
All thats needed are large coal burning stations large enough so that
scrubbers are cost effective...

Just a thought here:
Isn't it better to use up the oil in the Middle East, rather than our
own? Sooner or later, the oil over there will run out and if we save
our domestic resources until that time we will be in better shape than
if we keep on raping our own country.
I personally think it's insane to burn petroleum products. They're so
useful in the chemical industry that only idiots would waste it on
making a fire.
Nuclear energy as it is really isn't an option either. It's not
economical without huge government subsidies. If it were a moneymaker,
private investors would be lining up to build plants, and they
wouldn't need government handouts to do so. (Amory Lovins at the Rocky
Mountain Institute has discussed all of this better than I can.
Here's a good read:
http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/E05-14_NuclearPowerEconomicsClimateProtection
I feel we need a new type of nuclear energy (liquid sodium? breeders?
micro reactors?), and we need to move away from petroleum for energy
production. Whether that's solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, etc. will
depend upon the location.
Yes, it will cost more in the short term, but will be far better in
the long term.
Burning petroleum is just pushing the real costs off onto future
generations. Better to tighten our belts and pay the price now, rather
than have our descendants curse us. (Or rather curse us more than they
already will.)
I also feel we need to get our space program going again. We need to
be able to have more than one planet. Our eggs are all in one basket,
and we need to leave the nest. (How's that for mixing metaphors? :-)
There are huge amounts of resources out there that are just waiting
for us. Why have we chosen to sit at home instead? I hope we will see
the light and spread out into the solar system before it's too late.
(At some point we will have used up enough resources on the Earth that
we will no longer be capable of the large effort that will be needed
to get out into space.) We were making so much progress and then we
stopped dead. Why aren't we on the Moon and Mars? Why aren't we mining
the asteroids?
</rant>

That is about the sam,e as it os here but to drive on that public
road, you need all the "street legal equipment" (lights, turn signals,
seat belts, a windshield and wipers) and you need tags and insurance.
My problem is, the road I need to use to get anywhere is US41 with a
50 MPH limit. No carts, or even those funny looking Key West cars.

They are registered, though I don't know about insurance. If that's a
problem it will similarly be "solved" (it hasn't been for cars,
either).
Why would any sane person buy a limited range car? That's *nuts*.

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